Vaccines & autism: Parents, health officials at odds over connection

Actress Jenny McCarthy set off a buzz throughout the Internet when she claimed the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine triggered her son’s autism.

Matt Hutton

Actress Jenny McCarthy set off a buzz throughout the Internet when she claimed the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine triggered her son’s autism.

After her appearance last week on “Oprah,” where she discussed her new book outlining her son’s struggle with autism, many blogs picked up the story, and parents began coming forward to back up McCarthy’s claim about the MMR vaccine.

Galesburg resident Curt Linderman is among them. He’s been trying to draw attention to this issue for years. His son Kaden, now in kindergarten at Gale Elementary School, fought ear infections early in life and had been unable to get all his recommended vaccinations. When Kaden was 18 months old, he was well enough to receive the vaccines, so Linderman said doctors “caught him up” on about six vaccinations.

“It was without a doubt the wrong thing to do,” he said.

At that point, Linderman said his son had been developing normally and doing all the things children do at that age. After receiving the shots, Kaden became ill and had stomach trouble. Though he had been walking and talking, following a fever Linderman said was caused by the vaccines, Kaden became withdrawn, stopped talking and no longer made eye contact with anyone.

At first, fearing the fever had caused Kaden to become deaf, Linderman and his wife took Kaden to many doctors to determine what was wrong. Eventually, Kaden was diagnosed with autism. Linderman, who said his son was predisposed to develop autism, is convinced the autism was triggered by the vaccines.

“There’s no doubt in my mind and in the minds of the doctors treating my son that the vaccines triggered the autism in my son,” he said.

The main culprit parents such as Linderman and McCarthy blame is a preservative in some vaccines called thimerosal, which contains mercury. The Food and Drug Administration has pushed vaccine manufacturers to eliminate their use of thimerosal and Illinois has a law prohibiting the use of mercury in vaccines, though certain vaccines can receive an exemption by a public health entity. For example, both this year and last year’s flu vaccines and the vaccine for diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis are exempt from the mercury prohibition.

Linderman said he went back and researched the vaccines his son received and found he had been injected with “125 times more mercury in one day than the EPA says a 180-pound man should have in an entire year.”

Even though laws have been passed to remove mercury from vaccines, medical experts deny there is any link between autism and vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites a number of studies and medical research, including one study done by U.S. researchers who examined California kindergartners. The researchers found among children born between 1980 and 1994 there was a 373 percent increase in autism cases, though the increase in MMR vaccine coverage by the age of 2 was 14 percent.

In 2006, the World Health Organization said the evidence it had studied did not support the safety concerns regarding thimerosal.

Linderman said organizations such as CDC and WHO are influenced by big pharmaceutical companies that want to continue making vaccines with thimerosal. And doctors, understandably, follow the advice of those organizations.

But Dr. Frank Peppers of Galesburg offered another explanation for the reason some parents link autism and the vaccines. He said symptoms of autism can often present themselves around the same age children receive their vaccines, specifically MMR.

“I think it happens to be more that it is a coincidence that 12 to 15 months is when the MMR vaccine is given and (parents) started to notice symptoms of autism,” he said.

Peppers said the increase in autism is due more to the fact that parents and medical professionals are now better able to identify early cases of autism and other pervasive developmental disorders. He said the current medical research simply does not justify making a link between thimerosal and autism, though he said it was hard to say for certain until more studies are done.

“What I usually tell parents is, nothing is 100 percent safe,” Peppers said. “But if 200 people die a year from choking, people are not going to stop eating because of the risk of choking.”

However, Linderman, McCarthy and other skeptical parents say they have seen the proof and many are going to court to prove their cases. In June, Theresa and Michael Cedillo became the test case in a federal court, asking the court to find that their 12-year-old daughter Michelle’s autism was caused by the vaccine. The courts are expected to hear two more cases before making a ruling.

Linderman says there are “no benefits” to vaccines, and he often argues with schools on behalf of parents who do not want their children vaccinated. He said they are allowed to attend school without the vaccination because of a religious objection.

McCarthy added during her appearance on “Oprah” that she is not necessarily against vaccinations, but says there should not be a “one-size fits all” approach.

Knox County Health Department Administrator Greg Chance said he did not dispute that sometimes vaccines carry a risk of negative consequences, but he pointed out they were rare and far smaller than the chance of disease or even death that would be caused if vaccinations stopped.

“We (in public health) believe the risk of getting these types of preventable diseases outweighs the potential risk of an adverse event as a result of the immunizations,” he said.

Dr. Lynn Greeley, a pediatrician with the Galesburg Clinic, said it was also important for people to understand that the diseases prevented by vaccines can cause neurological disorders.

Greeley said about 99 percent of parents are not concerned about the vaccinations, though she understands those who are.

“I think everybody is concerned about what causes autism. I can completely understand parents of autistic children wanting to find an answer,” she said. “I understand and I sympathize, I try to give them as much information as I can.”

Linderman said he developed a “P.H. D in Google,” and thanks to a diet free of gluten and casein as well as therapy, Kaden has begun to improve and is now talking in complete sentences. Linderman encourages parents of autistic children to take advantage of the Bright Futures Resource Center at Lincoln School.

While Linderman and his wife found the Internet a vast help, both Greeley and Peppers cautioned parents against relying on it and said it was important to be properly informed by medical and health professionals when making a decision about vaccinations.

Peppers said any concerned parent should talk to the child’s doctor because all parties involved “want to make the best choice for the health of our children... As a member of the board of health, a doctor and a father, I endorse getting vaccinations.”